Interview: Geologist and Avey Tare of Animal Collective

Here is a band who uses the frequencies other
bands throw away. Every one of their songs eats away at you and
eats away at you until finally, you find yourself on your knees
somewhere, in the middle of the night, looking for your ears.

The truth: If you don’t enjoy flirting with madness, you
will probably find this band somewhat rude. Otherwise, their music
will make your day.

Animal Collective’s newest release, Prospect Hummer,
is a collaboration with recluse ’70s folk singer Vashti Bunyan,
which sounds like a bizarre connection, and it sort of is. Many
people have tried to describe the album by lumping it into the avant-garde
folk movement, which includes artists like Devendra Banhart, Joanna
Newsom and Six Organs of Admittance; but I would only be able to
compare it to Sung Tongs, their previous album, which I can’t compare to anything. I could say that there is a lot
of acoustic guitar and voice, which is true, but I would be painting
a very flawed, very incomplete picture.

In addition to these albums, Animal Collective has released four
previous experiments, including Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit
They’ve Vanished, Danse Manatee, Here Comes the Indian
and Campfire Songs. Each one sounds radically different
than the previous one and deconstructs pop/rock music from a completely
different angle. It’s also worth mentioning that two of the
members, Panda Bear and Avey Tare, have released separate projects
(Young Prayer, Jane and Terrestrial Tones), and
that the whole band loosely runs the label Paw Tracks, which has
recently put out the newest Ariel Pink album.

As far as I know, the band is scattered around the world, so I
can’t be entirely sure where the responses were coming from,
but the interview took place via email, over two months in the spring.
At one point, they even quoted Yeats.

-Ross Simonini

“We like liquidy sounds.”

ROSS SIMONINI: What is your general
approach to songwriting? Is it recording-based? And what I mean
by that is: do you write the material as you record it, in the studio?
Do you go for mood first, then song? Or is it more like the typical
singer-songwriter, in-a-room-with-a-guitar method? Because your
new material definitely sounds like it came from both methods simultaneously.

GEOLOGIST: We use all approaches. A lot of songs
start with the singer-songwriter approach, where someone comes in
with a song and then we all filter it through our own minds and
come up with parts and it usually ends up being a lot different
from where it started. And sometimes we pick a mood and jam and
then work on turning it into a structured song (i.e. “Two
Sails on a Sound”). And sometimes we start with some kind
of atmospheric sound loop and use that as the base and create a
song around it (i.e.“Wastered”).

It’s rare that a song will start with computer composition
because we do very little of it, almost none at all. But it has
happened, once or twice. Mostly though, we write material and then
play it live for a long period of time before recording it, and
what happens to the songs over the course of a tour plays a big
part in the recorded versions, which aren’t necessarily the
final versions, because then if we continue to play a song live
(a rare occurrence) we will try and change it even more. “Kids
on Holiday” is a good example of that.

RS: I’ve heard some reviewers talk about the “improvisational”
quality of your music. But it sounds pretty compositional to me.
All of your songs — including the longer, ambient pieces like
“Visiting Friends” — seem more like structured
compositions than improvisations.

GEOLOGIST: It’s a big misconception that most of our live
sets are improvised. Almost everything we’ve done has been
composed. The only things we improvise are the transitions between
songs, because we like to play continuous sets. Even songs like
“Visiting Friends,” “Infant Dressing Table”
and “Two Sails…” have loose rules and boundaries to
follow. They do have a compositional structure. In some of those
ambient songs there is also room to improvise the mood of the song;
so two versions can be very different. But it doesn’t really
matter to me how it comes across. I mean, it’s nice for people
to know that we work hard, know what we’re doing, and that
there is intent behind it, but ultimately I just want people to
be stoked on what they hear. I don’t think knowing the process
behind it should be that important to the listener.

RS: Some of the songs (like “College”) have sounds
that seem, maybe deceptively, like water or footsteps or “music
concrete,” but I’m not entirely sure. Do you use many
found sounds or field recordings? What is your general approach
to creating the Animal Collective vocabulary of sounds?

GEOLOGIST: Yes, we use lots of them — found sounds, field
recordings, electronics, feedback. You are right that a lot of times
they sound like something they are not. We like liquidy sounds,
but it’s often something different than just a stream or a
faucet. But I won’t really go too deep into our approach on
a technical level — I’m not trying to be secretive or
anything, I just can’t think of an ordered process. It’s
more like having fun and thinking about how a sound fits with the
mood and color and feel of a song. We just use our bunch of effects
and play around. Again, very little computer manipulation. We like
turning knobs and faders and such. We’ve been doing it since
high school, way before the laptop explosion, and we just stayed
old school for the most part.

RS: At this point in the history of music, what do you think the
boundaries are? What contemporary musicians do you think are pushing
them?

GEOLOGIST: Well, our friends are mostly the ones who are inspiring
me. Black Dice, Gang Gang Dance, Orthrelm, etc. People usually link
us with the freak folk people, but we’re not really a part
of all that. We don’t know any of them too well and have never
really played together, nor do we listen to them that often. None
of us are “folk” fans in the traditional sense. Joanna
Newsom is really fantastic though.

As far as the boundaries and the future of avant-garde, I have
no idea. I don’t think the people who reach that next step
are thinking about it either. That process of searching out new
boundaries to push in order to be the next avant-garde seems too
academic for me. People should just do what they want to do, and
if it happens to be something that pushes the boundaries, then that’s
sweet. If you are just trying to do something to be different, but
feel no personal attachment to what you are creating, then that’s
a shame. If it’s not something you would respond to on a deeper
level, why would anyone else respond to it?

RS: What about your own boundaries? As musicians who create new
sounds, what are the limitations you find yourself fighting against?
What are your musical crutches?

GEOLOGIST: I would say the only boundaries we
fight against are ourselves and our past. But it’s not too
hard. We consciously try and move beyond what we’ve done before.
Well not necessarily beyond, but away from. There are certain instruments
we like, but I’m not sure they are crutches so to speak. We
obviously like vocals, guitars, pianos, electronics, and percussion.
But we try and change the dynamic between those things from record
to record in order to explore more musical possibilities. If we
create something that reminds us too much of something we’ve
done before, or that we think could easily fit onto a past album
of ours, we abandon it. We’ve covered that ground already,
and it’s time to look forward. I think we used to have a little
too much tendency to rely on synthesizers, but we haven’t
used them prominently in years now. And I rely far too much on minidiscs
to create my loops and samples. I don’t know how to use a
sampler or a computer for music, but maybe I should soon. I went
to buy blank minidiscs the other day at an audio store and the guy
laughed at me. Then I went to Guitar Center and bought the last
five they had in stock. I think they will disappear soon, which
is sad because they rule.

“That’s basically what playing
music is about for me, being alive.”

RS: To what degree do you want your lyrics to be understood?
Obviously, there are certain songs where the lyrics seem to be obscured
by vocal techniques or effects or mixing. Do you like using the
voice as more of an instrument, with words being secondary to tones?
Do you think words can ever distract a listener from the music?
Do you think language and music are even suited or unsuited for
each other?

AVEY TARE: In my perfect musical world a person could understand
the lyrics or not understand the lyrics as they wanted. Initially,
with writing music that included vocals, it was primarily the goal
(and still is) to have the voice be seen as another instrument,
as having a very integrated role in the overall scheme of a song.
Though our song writing has become a little more focused on vocals
than it had been in the past, it would still feel awkward to only
focus on hearing the lyrics. Just as we like sounds to fit in with
the color and feel of a song, I’d say we approach vocals in
a very similar manner. Since “Sung Tongs” was a lot
less effected and more minimal, it was the first time we could really
use the lyrics as a guide to the color and the feeling of the tunes.
It’s fun to think of characters taking you through these environments
we are creating and speaking to you about what’s going on
and have the lyrics hint at the sounds and maybe even mess with
your mind a little. For our new record I think it’s the first
time where the lyrics are basically from my point of view. I guess
I just feel like I wanted to say something and that’s the
way it came out.

But the music and the vocals will always be very attached and I
think, most of the time, the lyrics get lost in the sound anyway,
which is fine cause I don’t necessarily think lyrics are that
important to getting into a song, as long as the feeling stays intact
and the emotion doesn’t get lost — though it’s
nice to think that people could know them if they wanted. Bands
like My Bloody Valentine or Lightning Bolt or Wolf Eyes, even Nirvana
are examples of bands that have gotten away with mastering the full
effect of a song without necessarily having the vocals be heard
perfectly. And yet you still know they are there and they convey
a certain feeling that fits with the song. I think language blends
itself perfectly to making music that’s primarily sound-based,
because you can manipulate words and phrases just like you can manipulate
sounds. Lyrics don’t even have to make sense so much as words
and letters sound good with the way I write a song.

RS: Do have any specific themes you focus on?
I know you said that you are more concerned with the phonetics of
words, but are there any reoccurring ideas? There are quite a few
animal
references — kitties, tigers, bats, rabbits, penguins, manatees,
etc. But is there anything else?

AVEY TARE: Mostly, I focus on what’s in
my head and in my heart at the moment. I guess these things are
affected by a combination of my dealings and feelings with my friends.
What I read and a lot of what I just see around me. “Kids
on Holiday,” for instance, is basically just about Noah (Panda
Bear) and I getting used to traveling around and playing music and
what it’s like to be traveling so much and feeling tired and
all the kinds of people you see around you moving. Moving for work,
moving for pleasure, moving for nothing.

But I read a lot of mystical literature, and surrealist literature
and I watch a lot of twisted films, so I think my viewpoint is kind
of skewed by these things and the words come out like they do. But
in a nutshell, it’s about being alive, you know? That’s
basically what playing music is about for me, being alive. It makes
me feel alive and it gives me a chance to talk about how I feel
about being alive. I think it’s a shame cause most singers
today just turn themselves into a cliché and that’s
what they think a singer is supposed to sing about. I don’t
really care at this point and I don’t really care if people
like or hate my lyrics. I want to write something that sounds good
with the music we make and that makes me feel good to sing about.
I do hope others can relate to what I say, if they can hear it,
but really I’m just talking about what’s in my head
and trying to say what life is like to me.

The animal references are just sort of arbitrary and happen to
come up here and there. “We Tigers” is not about tigers.
“Who Could Win a Rabbit” doesn’t have anything
to do with rabbits. And so on. Most of the time these are just catchy
song titles. A good song title is important to me and I like to
give the tunes the best possible name. Noah actually thought we
had too many animal references on Sung Tongs and didn’t
want to be those “animal guys.” So we are trying hard
to stray away from that, I guess, but usually it’s not that
difficult.

RS: You mentioned surrealist literature, mystical literature and
film as some non-musical arts that have influenced you. Can you
talk a little more specifically about some of your other non-musical
influences? Are there any writers or filmmakers that create moods
you are attracted to?

AVEY TARE: “I have always sought to bring
my mind close to the mind of Indian and Japanese poets, old women
in Connacht, mediums in Soho, lay brothers who I imagine dreaming
in some medieval monastery the dreams of their village, learned
authors who refer all to antiquity; to immerse it in the general
mind where that mind is scarce separable from what we have begun
to call the subconscious; to liberate it from all that comes from
councils and committees, from the world as it’s seen from
universities or from populous towns…..” (Yeats)
-sweet writers… Laxness, Walser, Breton, Lowry, Nabokov…
-sweet books… The Untammables, We, Indian Tales, Hopscotch…
-sweet directors… Jorodowsky, Tarkofsky, Ferrera…
-sweet films… Color of Pomegranates, Shadow of our Ancestors,
any Russian fairytale from the 1960s, Spirit of the Beehive, Eyes
without a Face, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Come and See, Valerie and
her World of Wonders, Dazed and Confused, House (Japan, 1977), Woman
in the Dunes, Onibaba, The Shinning, Possession (1980s), Deranged,
Ganja and Hess….

“Hello here I am, I’m the first
track.”

RS: The ordering of the songs on Sung Tongs
creates a very distinct narrative throughout the album. Using “Leaf
House” and “Who Could Win a Rabbit” as the first
tracks, creates an impression that is completely obliterated by
the final tracks. Both of those first tracks are probably the most
concise, song-formatted tracks on the album. What was your intention
with the flow of the album?

AVEY TARE: Some album orders just fit like a glove,
you know? I know it’s kind of cliché to say, but it’s
hard to put it any other way. Usually the first track kind of just
stands out there and says: “Hello here I am, I’m the
first track.” And we’re all like: “Yes, indeed
you are.” We sort of just knew that “Leaf House”
would be the first track as soon as it was done cause of the way
it just takes off. We were lucky in that after that the flow just
sort of put itself into place. I think we chose those first two
tracks to start it off cause they gave the record a sort of joyful
momentum that none of our other records had surfed on till that
point — and that’s primarily what we wanted the record
to stand for: “good times.” It kind of just starts rolling
you know? After a few more songs we felt more comfortable taking
it into darker territory with “Visiting Friends” and
playing around a little more with the weirder songs. Then “Whaddit
I done” kind of just closes everything really nicely. There
really isn’t a verbal plan though, you know? It’s all
about hearing what’s right and sometimes that’s easy
and sometimes it’s not so easy. It’s hard when you want
to keep certain feelings distant from each other you know. It’s
hard to know when it’s best to bring things down and then
pick it up again. A lot of it has to do with how we play live and
I think, because of the way we think about our live sets and the
way they flow so much, it can make things easy and difficult. Easy
because sometimes you know that certain songs are just meant to
be together. Difficult because sometimes we have to tell ourselves
that the album is a different beast then playing the songs live,
and we shouldn’t approach it that way.

RS: The difference between Sung Tongs and
Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished
and Here Comes the Indian is so significant, that I would
imagine some general parameters were set before recording/writing.
When you begin recordings, do you make any conscious attempt toward
certain overall sounds? Obviously, every record from every band
changes slightly, but with your records, it seems as though a specific,
thought-out experimentation was put into effect.

GEOLOGIST: I think it’s more accurate that we make a conscious
effort to move away from a sound that we have already explored on
previous albums. We do not like to repeat ourselves and spend time
and energy on something we have already explored. However, we have
also made conscious efforts to move towards certain ideas and sounds.
For example, Campfire Songs was a conscious effort to explore
acoustic guitars and outside recording. Danse Manatee was
a conscious effort to see how noise and pop could be combined and
how frequencies occupy space. It is not often that we set rules
or parameters before we play, though it does happen sometimes.

Psalms

RS: What do you think about hate? Do you think it’s possible
to hate a human being?

GEOLOGIST: Sure, I guess it’s possible to
hate a person. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced true
hate. Every time I have felt hate it has been the result of my own
feelings of jealousy or insecurity. I may not have been aware of
that at the time, but looking back I think that was the case. Maybe
if I knew someone like Hitler, I could experience it. But in general,
I think hating is a waste of time. Especially when it comes to art.
I obviously have lots of opinions about art and tend to rant sometimes.
My girlfriend can tell you how often it happens and how annoying
it can be. But I’m aware of it, and usually keep it to myself
or to people like her, who know me best. I never criticize anyone’s
taste, even if I disagree with it or think it’s worthless.
I try and use the phrase: “It’s just not my thing”
as often as possible. I hate things more than people or art. Like
I hate moving and I hate break-up, and I really hate words that
have the letters L and M next to each other – almond, palm, calm,
psalm.

RS: Can you talk a little about the current state
of Animal/Paw Tracks records? How is the label connected to Animal
Collective?

GEOLOGIST: It is a misconception that we sit in an office all day
running Paw Tracks. Our friend Todd, who also runs Acute and Carpark,
offered to help us run a label where we can do whatever we want.
He deserves all the credit for running it day to day and getting
the records distributed and reviewed. We don’t do shit except
decide what is released and, as you can see, we don’t release
much. We have pretty high standards. We want it to be a place where
we can do our own projects, aside from AC-stuff, but we also want
to put out other people’s music. That’s the hard part.
There are tons of great bands out there but they usually already
work with labels, or there are labels that already help out the
style of music that a band plays. We’ve tried to put out people
like Ariel Pink and the Peppermints who, as far as we’re concerned,
don’t get the attention they deserve. Hopefully, we’ll
find more worthwhile projects. Right now we don’t get out
much to see other shows and stuff.

AVEY TARE: I think Prospect Hummer happened
at a time when Vashti was still very unsure of herself and of stepping
back into the recording/public domain side of the music world. Though
we all think she has the most beautiful voice ever and created one
of the most beautiful records ever, her confidence had been shot
a little at that point because of unfortunate experiences with the
music industry. I think it took some time to regain that confidence
but we tried our best to stand behind her the whole way. It was
our original intent to have the project be fully collaborative though
we had written three of the songs — the first two were basically
Sung Tongs outtakes — on our own. So we sent Vahsti
the music and the lyrics and told her she could contribute whatever
she wanted. But she was still a little shy in terms of her guitar
playing, so she basically just sang. But ohhhhh what a beautiful
job she did.